Happy St. Valentine's Day!

At last I have a bit of stitching to show you!  With the popularity of embroidery framed in hoops lately, I decided to give it a go with a piece of lovely coarse linen as the fabric.  I've been intrigued by the idea of negative space lately and this was a great opportunity to play!  

I started with framing the heart in embroidered white lace to make a lacy valentine, then surrounded it with flowers  Unlike crazy quilting, where I usually use pearl cotton to make the threads stand up off the fabric, I opted to use embroidery floss for this piece.  Most of it uses 3 strands, but the roses are 6 strands.  Love how it turned out!  

A lot of the stitchers I've seen don't really finish the backs, but just run a thread around the fabric and pull tight. I did do that, but then I opted to back it with a circle of felt buttonhole stitched to the linen.  Then I added  my usual embroidered signature and added a buttonhole loop to facilitate hanging it on the wall!  It gives it a nice finished look and it hangs nicely against the wall! 

Wishing all my readers a lovely Valentine's day and prayers that you be surrounded with love!